My process of creating Sugarless Vol 2: Stupid Junk To Make You Dumber, adult coloring zine!
On occassion I might print something, then fold it, and bind it. It's a zine! But Zines can vary wildly in size and content, which really makes it difficult to define. In my case it was pretty simple. I'm not much of a storyteller, so Im going to rely on pictures, and rather than just a smattering of images with jumbled words I figured why not a coloring zine for adults!
What I did was take all the various drawings over last few years, some that never amounted to much, and put them together in a 32 page zine. Some of these drawings included some recent items, such as my Betelgeuse shirt illustration, The Devil Rides Out poster and shirt design, my Rocko's End of Life sticker design, my Blob and Velour Fog Futurama stickers, a few designs from my Bobs Burgers sticker pack. There are a few older items like my Tentakiller, Ronald McBaphomet, Stink Madness, and a few other items I've put together over time. I had also recently completely a Duckman design, so of course I had to use that as the cover for my new coloring zine.
Aside from drawings I decided to make a little more fun out this by including mazes and word searches. Rather than make a boring word search, pssshh, I decided to use various made-up words from The Simpsons, old slang terms from the 90's, and even stranger terms from various centuries ago, like Bedswerver and Raggabrash. So much better than educating yourself with things found in encyclopedia's and dictionaries.
The last thing I wanted to include in order to set this apart from other zines or coloring books, was highlighting other artists. I contacted some talented people I follow who produce some killer work, either artwork, music, or general artisry in some form. Not to mentions some really killer shops that were awesome enough to agree to carry my zine. I only included some rad peeps!
After figuring out all the nuts and bolts of what I'm putting in this newly assembled adult coloring zine it was time to print! Now it got interesting. Where am I printing this, how is it getting printed, who is printing this? After many searches and harrassing questions I had enough and decided to do it myself. Standard 20lb copy paper is far too thin and bleeds through, making is absolute garbage to use. The next was some nice 28lb paper I picked up from staples. Thick enough to hide bleed through, but plyable enough to fold and bind. Woohoo! Brough it home and started printing away on lovely Canon iX6820. I love that printer.
Bind this was easy breeze, just a tad bit time consuming. It's easily accomplished in few steps:
- Fold each page in half as cleanly as possible
- Crease with a marker for a sharp edge
- Assemble it all together in book form
- Before stapling I suggesting placing 2 layers of cardboard to prevent staples from puncturing your table
- Unfold and determine your staple placement (Saddle-Stitch Binding)
- Staple your edge and carefully turn over your zine withouth pulling out the newly placed staples
- Using a pen or marker, roll it over each staple to fold them inward (this saved your fingers)
- Boom!
I found that when putting these together in large quanities it's best to have some ridiculous film playing in the background. I suggest anything from the Classic Universal or Hammer Film archive. Be prepared to use up at least an hour. In the end both your fingers and back will be somewhat satisfied that you had something to watch to keep your mind off the seering pain from all that work.
Once your binding is complete the last step I took was stakcing them in piles of 10 and placing heavy books on top. This helps compress and crispen your folds. I left this overnight because I had other things to do. I mean, c'mon, let that stuff sit. Otherwise, your zine is done. Sell it, color it, enjoy it!
Don's worry you can pick up a copy for yourself! I have several options available too, like sticker combos, bulk orders for shops or distributors, and even a multi-zine option that includes my newly re-issued Vol 1 zine!
